Former College of the Ozarks student honored during Laura Bush visit

Roy F. Hopper

A former student of College of the Ozarks, back when it was a secondary school called the School of the Ozarks, has been honored as the namesake of Patriots Plaza.

Roy F. Hopper was drafted into World War II in 1943 and spent more than nine months in a German POW camp before he and three other American soldiers escaped. During a Nov. 8 visit by Laura Bush to the campus, the former first lady helped dedicate the Roy F. Hopper Patriots Plaza, which serves as the entrance to the college's new college preparatory lab school, called School of the Ozarks.